Bold predictions for 2015

We've got 15 of them.

In January, the Duggar family of Northwest Arkansas will reveal that, due to Jim Bob Duggar's being bitten by a radioactive Mormon, the paterfamilias has been blessed with the ability to reproduce by budding, much like a sea anemone. The first asexually-reproduced Duggar will be revealed to the world two days later, with another coming every six days or so until either Jim Bob's supply of stray hairs, moles and skin tags is depleted, or Arkansas's population is entirely Duggar, whichever comes first.

The Arkansas Legislature will push through the Unborn Firearms Protection Act of 2015 in February. It mandates that each pregnant woman submit to having a loaded and fully functional handgun implanted in her uterus so her fetus can fend off any would-be abortion providers.

In March, local entrepreneur Jasper Hendrik will start a Little Rock food truck called The Truck-Truck Truck that sells only truck-shaped pastries with tiny trucks baked inside them.

To solve the state's prison overcrowding crisis, lawmakers will activate "Project Thunderdome" in March, building a high fence around Pine Bluff and allowing the city to be transformed into a squalid prison colony run by criminal warlords, where only the strongest and most heavily armed survive. Most residents there will notice no change.

In April, a look at the old emails of former Pulaski County Judge Buddy Villines following his retirement will reveal that the multicolored disco lights installed on downtown bridges during his term in office are actually part of a plot to hypnotize the citizenry into believing that the trolley system is a perfectly good allocation of county resources.

In May, the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department will reveal that it has run out of money to complete the I-630/I-430 interchange in West Little Rock, leaving motorists headed for Saline County from downtown no other choice than to complete a "Dukes of Hazzard"-esque jump over an unfinished section of the road deck before continuing on their way.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson will blow many a mind in June when he legally changes his name to Asa Otto Tacocat, fulfilling a childhood dream to have not only his first name spelled the same way backward as forward, but his middle and last names as well.

A large spacecraft will land on the lawn of the state Capitol in July, with the beatific beings of light who emerge angrily demanding to know what we've done to their ambassador of goodwill and peace, TC Edwards.

In August, after Arkansas Travelers mascot Otey the Swamp Possum slips sportswriter Wally Hall a scrawled note in which Otey begs for the sweet release of death, it will be revealed that the mascot is not actually a guy in a suit, but a hideous human/animal chimera created in a top secret lab off the coast of South Korea.

In June, ExxonMobil will cease their efforts to re-open the Pegasus pipeline that ruptured at Mayflower in 2013, announcing that they will be opting for a much safer system that uses a giant circus cannon to fire train tank cars full of crude oil over Arkansas, to be caught by a cartoonish, one-acre catcher's mitt at the Texas border.

In September, the Arkansas Times' Observer will be unmasked as former Pulaski County Sheriff Tommy Robinson, who writes the column on a lapdesk made from the shattered skulls of his enemies and is paid in raw meat.

In October, keepers at the Little Rock Zoo will discover that the zoo's two jaguars have made paper mache copies of themselves to fool guards before tunneling out in search of more delicious toddlers.

In November, Arkansas Secretary of State Mark Martin will be impeached following a tearful press conference in which Martin finally admits that he is not, in fact, "that NASCAR car guy" everybody thought he was when they voted for him.

In December, two guys drunkenly crossing their streams while taking a leak behind Vino's will somehow lead to a "Ghostbusters"-style total protonic reversal and the end of all life on earth as we know it.